Facebook’s Instagram Unveils Video Service

Facebook’s Instagram app now has a new video-sharing tool, which lets people shoot and share 15 second clips and add filters and a cover photo.

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom unveiled a new video service for the popular image sharing app now owned by Facebook.

The feature, simply called video on Instagram, lets users create and share short video clips of 15 seconds or less. The product puts Facebook in direct competition with rival Twitter, whose app, Vine, has grown rapidly in recent months.

“This is the same Instagram we know and love, but it moves,” said Systrom, who runs Facebook’s Instagram team.

Systrom, dressed in a denim shirt and jeans, discussed the broader mission of Instagram at an event at Facebook headquarters. He said that more than just a photo-sharing app, Instagram was an application to capture visual moments, whether in photo or video form.

The new feature, which will be part of the core Instagram app, allows users to take a continuous clip, or a series of clips, to create a video of 3 to 15 seconds.

During his presentation, Systrom highlighted features that differentiate the product from Vine. Users, for example, will also be able to apply special video filters and quickly edit the video by deleting any clip. Separately, Systrom also introduced a special feature called “Cinema,” a tool that automatically stabilizes video. When asked by a reporter why Instagram did not use Vine’s time limit of 6 seconds, instead of 15 seconds, Systrom was coy, noting that it was an “artistic choice” and just felt “right.”

Starting on Thursday, it will be available on the Apple and Google 's Android mobile operating systems.

In an effort, perhaps to further blunt criticism that Instagram was jumping on Vine’s bandwagon, Systrom also said that the Instagram team had thought about integrating video into the application two years ago, but struggled to do it in a way that was fast, simple and beautiful enough. He said the team was now capable of delivering a video experience that checks off all three boxes.

Systrom’s presentation demonstrated how critical the photo-sharing app has become to Facebook’s ambitions on mobile. The event was attended by several members of Facebook’s management team, including chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook chief, Mark Zuckerberg, who kicked-off the event. Over the past year, the company has roughly tripled the size of the team to 35 people, and is currently hiring for several positions.

For Facebook, video is becoming an increasingly important vertical for the technology company, which is trying to woo brands with new advertising formats. On Thursday, Systrom dodged questions about how video on Instagram could represent new advertising opportunities, though said that Instagram – which still does not sell any ads — will “become a business over time.”